h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

While I'm not a vegetarian, I don't eat red meat for various reasons, most of which have to do with my health rather than ethics.

However, I do like my mexican food and personal favourites are tacos, chilli, and any kind of fajita.

The thing that I do when I don't want to use meat, whether it be some kind of mince or chicken, is to use carrots and potatos instead.

For me, as I am not a connoseur at all, most of my recipies are very similar. I usually buy the tortillas and taco shells ready-made, and also a ready-made salsa. The Discovery brand is quite tasty and we've been quite happy with those.

Tacos/fajitas for two:

One large potato, diced.
One carrot, grated
Half a pepper(bell pepper, any colour, diced
two tomatoes, diced
half an onion, diced
oil, water and seasoning as needed
optionally, add half a tin of refried beans or mashed kidney beans.

Start off by cooking the potatoes on a frying pan or a wok on a low heat with lots of oil until they get soft almost all the way through. Add the onions and carrots next, and then after a while, add the other ingredients. I've found that the veggie version of this needs more spice and seasoning than the meat version, as the spuds seem to soak it all up.

For chilli, the recipe is mostly the same, although I tend to use tomato puree as well, to give the sauce more flavour and texture.
We usually serve the chilli on a bed of nachos, topped with cheese, with salsa, guacamole and creme fraiche on the side.

When I've cooked this for my meat-eater family, none of them have noticed the lack of meat in the food and have in fact commented that it was nice

cheers ismarah